STJ acts as advisor on the $55m sale of Helios Towers by Newlight and RIT
2024
STJ advised Newlight Partners and RIT Capital Partners (including the Santo Domingo Family) on their $55m sell-down of shares in Helios Towers (“HTWS”), a leading telecom tower infrastructure company driving the growth of communications in Africa and the Middle East.
This is the first sell-down by Newlight (14.9% of HTWS pre-selldown) and RIT (4.9% pre-selldown) since the IPO of HTWS (STJ-advised) in October 2019.
STJ was able to use its longstanding relationship with HTWS and resulting knowledge of the share register to help construct the best transaction to meet shareholder and wider stakeholder objectives.
The primary shareholder objective was a positively received transaction, right-sizing sales against demand; recognising the low liquidity and relatively narrow investor base for HTWS.
STJ provided critical advice to Newlight and RIT on all structural and tactical aspects of the ABB including timing, bank coordination and investor targeting, sizing, pricing and allocations.
- Timing and Structure: Following a strong rally for the stock YTD (+38%), STJ assessed a potential pre-summer transaction for the shareholders. A 2-day wall cross ensured demand visibility and a de-risked transaction ahead of launch despite challenging wider European market conditions. Alternative deal structures of a “club deal” vs. a traditional Accelerated Bookbuild were considered.
- Bank coordination and investor targeting: STJ played an instrumental role in coordinating the bank syndicate to ensure a comprehensive outreach and thorough investor map that enabled the transaction to be widely distributed, including STJ uncovering a key anchor order which allowed for improved demand and pricing dynamics for a successful trade.
- Sizing: On the back of pre-launch indications and the public launch, several new and sizeable high-quality orders allowed for a 10% upsize of the deal from the announced 2-3% of the Company to 3.6% ($55m), promoting further liquidity in a largely illiquid stock (£670k per day on average in the last 3 months).
- Pricing and allocations: Electing for a fixed price transaction at launch of bookbuilding at 115p (the IPO price) ensured coverage within 12 minutes and a very narrow discount of 6.7% (versus previous HTWS share sales 8%-18% and average market discounts for similar illiquid ABBs 2024 YTD of 9.95%).
